Viscosity of nematic mixtures: A free-volume approach

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Abstract
The five Leslie viscosities for a mixture of two nematic materials are computed as functions of the temperature, composition and order parameter. It is shown that, for a nematic mixture of A and B, the equations describing the composition and temperature behaviour of the Leslie viscosities have the same form as those for the pure components, provided that composition-averaged values of the parameters are used. For the case where the free volume is additive, the relaxation times for the mixtures can be directly expressed as functions of the parameters for the pure components. These results are compared with the experimental data on λ1 for MBBA/EBBA mixtures, and fairly good agreement is found.